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Amidst a worldwide concern with teacher quality, recent teacher reforms often focus on how to certify teachers, how to evaluate teachers, how to recruit the best and brightest people to be teachers, and how to fire bad teachers. The political discourse of these policy reforms oftentimes depicts teachers as largely inactive transmitters of knowledge and does not recognize the agency they have in affecting standards. Yet, such a narrow framework may suppress teacher pedagogy, practices, and also teacher beliefs. In this chapter, we seek to understand the extent that two types of math teacher beliefs – traditional and constructivist orientations – are related to national cultural factors. In doing so, we test both “culturist” and “neo-institutional” hypotheses by observing how those beliefs vary across different nations.

Results from international large-scale assessments, such as PISA surveys, suggest that boys do better in math and science, whereas girls do better in reading. How do gender gaps vary across subjects, when estimated simultaneously? Building on the work of Tsai, Smith, and Hauser (2017), we answer this question by applying a multilevel-MIMIC model that enables us to estimate gender gaps in two ways: gender differences in the effects of observed family and school factors on math, science, and reading scores; and the “adjusted” gender gaps in test scores across all three subjects after controlling for observables. We apply the model to 2012 PISA data of students aged 15–16 and enrolled in 9th or 10th grade in three East Asian (Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan) and three Western countries (USA, Germany, and the Czech Republic) that represent both similar and different types of school systems. Our findings indicate that the gender gap in math or science achievement in Western countries, favoring boys, does not necessarily apply to the East Asian countries examined here, while all three East Asian countries exhibit similar features of gender reading gaps in the 10th grade. There is evidence indicating that observed background and school factors impact boys’ and girls’ achievement in a similar way in USA, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and the Czech Republic, but not in Germany. Overall, gender differences in family and school influences do not account for gender differences in academic achievement in any of the six countries.

Purpose – This chapter focuses on the family and school influences on the achievement gaps in math and reading by gender, race, and nativity.

Methodology – With the longitudinal data from the National Education Longitudinal Studies, this chapter uses panel data technique to model for the changes of the achievement from the three time points of observation, 8th grade, 10th grade, and 12th grade. This study proposes the concept of “low-level constrained curriculum” to characterize the curriculum structure that leads to the universal low level of course taking among students within the same school.

Findings – The analysis shows that this kind of curriculum structure has the most damaging effect on individual students' math achievement outcomes. For the analysis on parental involvement, the results show that school involvement is more effective than home involvement for math achievement, but not for reading. Domain-specific parental involvement is more important than general parental involvement for both math and reading. These findings have important theoretical and policy implications.

At the beginning of children's school careers, large differences already exist between children in their mathematical skills and knowledge. Preparatory math skills such as counting and Piagetian operations are important predictors of later math learning disabilities. However, little research has been conducted on the underlying processes that could explain or predict these preparatory math skills. Traditionally, intelligence has been viewed, next to language (vocabulary), as an important predictor of school success in general and math performance in specific. However, recent studies suggest that other, more fluid, domain-general cognitive processes, such as working memory and executive functions, are better predictors than traditional IQ scores. This chapter reports on two studies in which the relations between early mathematics and different working memory components are investigated. In the first study, the relations between the Early Numeracy Test (ENT) and five working memory aspects have been studied in a correlational study with 240 kindergartners. The following working memory components can be distinguished: the central executive controlling system, the phonological component, and the visuospatial component. In this study, three distinctive executive functions were measured: inhibition, shifting, and planning. The results show that phonological working memory, shifting, and planning are highly related to children's early math competence. Together, these functions can explain 50% of the total variance in early math. In a second study under 111 kindergartners, it was found that the scores on the ENT are moderately related to the executive function planning. Contrary to the expectations, intelligence was more related to preparatory math skills than planning. However, in a short training study with 15 low performing children, it was found that children's planning scores could better predict their improvement than intelligence: children low in planning did not profit as much from the training as children with higher planning capacities. The results of these studies emphasize the need for further research on the relations between working memory processes and preparatory math skills. These processes seem to play an important role in the origin of math learning difficulties. The results of the second study also suggest that remediation of early math learning difficulties should be adapted according to children's cognitive profiles regarding working memory and executive functions.

International assessments have shown gender disparity in STEM among middle school students. Little is known of the gender disparity, the role of psychosocial factors, and school-to-work aspirations in STEM fields in the Cambodian context. The sample included 100 15-year-old students (53% females) from 10 schools in four provinces and the capital city. Classroom observations included eight classrooms from one of the 10 surveyed schools. This study’s measures were adapted from TIMSS’s including science and math interests, and perceived STEM support from teachers and parents. Results indicated that non-STEM subjects are on top of the most enjoyed subjects reported by the students. No statistical significance between genders on STEM interests was found. A multiple regression analysis showed that parents’ and teachers’ support in math, and teachers’ support in science, were predictive of STEM interests. Both parents and students tended to value math more than science, indicating a possible lack of understanding of science. Students showed a significant disconnect between STEM education received in classrooms and aspirations toward an actual career in STEM fields. Classroom observations indicated that while females tended to be shy in the classroom, most teachers did not exhibit behaviors suggesting gender discrimination patterns. Explanations of students’ interests in STEM regardless of gender, as well as the current climate in higher education and careers regarding the gender disparity in STEM, were discussed based on socioeconomic and sociocultural issues within the Cambodian context.

Before 2011, student performance rates in college algebra and trigonometry at North Carolina A&T State University (NCA&TSU) were consistently below 50%. To remedy this situation, the Mathematics Department implemented the math emporium model (MEM) instructional method. The underlying principle behind MEM is that students learn math by doing math (Twigg, 2011). The MEM requires students to work on math problems and spend more time on material that they do not understand while allowing them to spend less time on material that they do understand. Also, students receive immediate feedback on problems from teaching assistants as they work through their online assignments. After implementing the MEM, student pass rates improved for both the MEM and traditional sections. Data to date also show that female students outperform male students in both instructional models. Further study is needed to determine the factors that have caused improvement in pass rates in addition to the implementation of the MEM. Some important lessons learned by the NCA&TSU math faculty from implementing the MEM into the college algebra and trigonometry courses are that successful implementation requires a long-term commitment, internal and external collaborations, and the collective ability to determine what works for the local setting.

This study aims to better understand how students’ academic strains and multilevel strengths relate to their math achievement, with a particular emphasis on underrepresented students of color and girls given the need to broaden science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) participation for these groups.

National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 data was used for a historical examination of the various student academic strains and multilevel strengths that relate to math achievement in high school. T-tests and chi-square tests were conducted to examine differences in strains and strengths across policy-relevant student subgroups. Ordinary least squares (OLS) regression was used to examine how students’ strains and strengths related to their math achievement and the relative importance of each of these factors.

The findings suggest that both the academic strains and multilevel strengths that students’ experience in middle school are related to their high school math achievement and the prevalence of these factors varies across different policy-relevant student subgroups. Furthermore, the relative importance of these factors on achievement differs.

Studies which focus on either students’ academic challenges or their adaptive strengths fall short of a more nuanced discussion about how both factors relate to math outcomes. This study addresses this limitation and emphasizes that stakeholders who are interested in STEM diversity should consider holistic strategies for alleviating gender and racial/ethnic discrepancies in secondary math achievement.

This study aims to investigate the differences in spatial ability between students with a math learning disability and their normal peers.

To investigate these differences two groups, (60 students with a math learning disability) and (60 normal students) from fifth grade with a mean age (10.6 years) were administered with spatial ability test along with an IQ test. Students with a math learning disability were chosen using measures of the following: math learning disability questionnaire developed from learning disability evaluation scale – renormed second edition (LDES-R²) (McCarney and Arthaud, 2007) and the Quick Neurological Screening Test (Mutti et al., 2012), in addition to their marks in formal math tests in school.

Comparison between the two groups in four aspects of spatial ability resulted in obvious differences in each aspect of spatial ability (spatial relations, mental rotation, spatial visualization and spatial orientation); these differences were clear, especially in mental rotation and spatial visualization.

This paper contributes to gain more insights into the characteristics of pupils with a math learning disability, the nature of spatial abilities and its effect on a math learning disability. Moreover, the results suggest spatial ability to be an important diagnose factor to distinguish and identify students with a math learning disability, and that spatial ability is strongly relevant to math achievement. The results have significant implications for success in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics domain.

Why do girls and women progressively opt out of maths‐related study and careers? This study aims to examine motivations influencing female adolescents' choices for maths participation during high school, which has implications for their long‐term careers.

Two longitudinal samples were included from different contexts – one from Sydney, Australia (N=459), and the other from Southeastern Michigan, USA (N=266). Both samples involved adolescents from upper middle‐class backgrounds, from coeducational government schools, and data in both settings were collected in the mid 1990s. Australian data spanned a three‐year period through grades 9 to 11; while the US sample spanned a five‐year period, with data from grades 8, 10, 11, and 12. The Expectancy‐Value model of Eccles (Parsons) et al., framed structural equation modelling analyses for the influences of maths ability‐related beliefs and values on boys' and girls' subsequent choices for senior high maths participation.

Boys selected higher levels of maths than girls in the Australian setting, although not in the US sample. There was no support for gendered maths achievement as a basis for gendered maths participation. Interest in and liking for maths were the strongest influence on the Australian adolescents' choices for maths participation, with ability beliefs also influencing choices over and above prior mathematical achievement. Ability‐related beliefs and different kinds of values also predicted adolescents' choices in the US sample, more strongly for girls than boys.

Interpretations and implications focus on ways to increase girls' and women's retention in the leaky maths pipeline.

Longitudinal data allow one to determine the extent to which different kinds of motivations predict boys' and girls' mathematical course‐taking through senior high school across Australian and US samples. This has implications for their long‐term careers.